During last week, I visited all of the classes and we talked about the importance of saying thank you to others and expressing gratitude. We have so many things to be grateful for; our world that God continues to bless us with, our families, our friends, our school and the wonderful sight of rain this week!

The children wrote a prayer of thanks and made a class prayer chain, which we placed on our “Gratitude Tree” during assembly. It was a very special time of prayer and thanksgiving for the small blessings in life that we sometimes take for granted.

Below is an “I’m Thankful” Prayer, a snapshot of some of the things that the students are grateful for.

YEAR 1
I AM THANKFUL FOR BEING HAPPY (ZAC)
I AM THANKFUL FOR THE WHOLE WORLD (BRIDGET)
I AM THANKFUL FOR ST MARY OF THE CROSS (NIXON)

YEAR 2
I AM THANKFUL FOR AUSTRALIA (JERWILL)
I AM THANKFUL FOR MY LIFE (DYLAN)

YEAR 3
I AM GRATEFUL FOR TECHNOLOGY (REEVE)
I AM THANKFUL FOR ALL HOPE AND LOVE THAT COMES FROM OTHERS (ISABELLE)
I’M THANKFUL FOR THE EXISTANCE OF THE DINOSAURS BECAUSE THEY INTEREST ME A LOT (LUKE)

YEAR 4
I AM THANKFUL FOR MY FAMILY BECAUSE THEY LOVE ME (JOSIE)
I AM THANKFUL FOR THE NEW KINDERS STARTING (MICAH)
I AM GRATEFUL FOR THE SCHOOL BEING BUILT (HARRY)
I AM THANKFUL FOR BEING AT ST MICHAELS AND MEETING NEW FRIENDS (SOPHIE)

YEAR 5
I’M THANKFUL FOR WAKING UP EVERY DAY AND HAVING PARENTS (HUNTER)
I’M SO GRATEFUL FOR ALL MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND FOR ALL THE AMAZING ADVENTURES THEY HAVE TAKEN ME ON (PATRICK)
I’M THANKFUL FOR THE FIRIES, FOR SAVING OUR HOUSE (LILY)
I’M THANKFUL FOR THE RAIN, PUTTING OUT THE FIRES THAT HAVE WOUNDED OUR COUNRTY (SKYE)

YEAR 6
I’M THANKFUL FOR THE DOCTORS THAT HELP US (JACOB H)
I’M GRATEFUL FOR BEING ABLE TO GO TO A SCHOOL (DANI)

BEGINNING OF THE SCHOOL YEAR/WELCOME MASS AND MORNING TEA
This Friday is our Beginning of School/Welcome Mass. It will be held at 9:30am in our St Michael’s Parish Church. During this Mass we will commission our Year 6 Leaders and welcome all those new to our school. All are welcome to attend, especially our Year 6 Parents and Carers.

After Mass, we will hold a Welcome Morning Tea for our parents, especially welcoming our new Kindergarten parents and those parents whose children have commenced St Michaels this year. All St Michael’s parents are welcome to attend. Stop by the school hall and have a cuppa and a chance to meet new parents.

VISION AND MISSION SURVEY
As mentioned in our newsletter last week, our school is currently reviewing our School Vision and Mission statement. The purpose of this review is to ensure that everyone associated with the school are clear about our school's purpose and direction, so that it is providing the best possible Catholic education in this community.

We have been working with Mr Gary Quinn from the Catholic Education, Diocese of Wollongong. His role is with Adult Spiritual Formation for the Diocesan Schools. As part of this review, parents are asked to complete a survey regarding our current Vision and Mission. Recognising the partnership between home and school, this is an opportunity for you to provide some feedback. I thank you in advance for your interest in completing this survey.

You can access the survey by  clicking the link below or copying and pasting it to your browser.
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1GNBBInlWj6JYaJ4xtDLIGiqhqpEMvOuxWaCFS79DCUk/edit?ts=5e2fb49f

SWIMMING CARNIVAL
Tomorrow is our Swimming Carnival. At this point in time, the swimming carnival will be going ahead. Students participating will need to bring their swimmers, towel, lunch, water bottle, sunscreen, goggles (if required) and entrance money/pass to school.  If it rains significantly in the morning, we will need to cancel the carnival. We will inform all parents if the carnival gets cancelled via COMPASS and our School Facebook page.

We have been informed by Mittagong Pool that unfortunately there is no back up date available. We will need to do the next best thing, which will be, take groups of students who are potential representatives at the Diocesan Carnival, to the pool and time them in order to make up a St Michael’s team. The St Michael’s Representative Team details need to be sent to the CEO by Monday Week 5, so we do not have a lot of time to decide this team. The details regarding any representative team, will be given later this week, dependant on the outcome of tomorrow.

WEST TIGERS VISIT
Today Chris McQueen and Josh Aloli, two representative players from the West Tigers, visited our school. They talked about showing RESPECT- Respect for each other, respect for a team, respect for the players and good sportsmanship. We thank the West Tigers School Liaison team for coming today to present a very informative presentation on the NRL and in particular, how to show respect to others, both on and off the field. 

MEET AND GREET (Years 1-6)
On Wednesday 19^th February, we will hold our 2020 Meet and Greet meetings. This is an opportunity for you to meet your child/children’s class teacher and learn about the various activities planned for their class.

Times for Meet and Greet

Year 1 and Year 2:       5:30-6:00pm

Year 3 and Year 4:      6:00-6:30pm

Year 5 and Year 6:      6:30-7:00pm

Thank you for your continued support of St Michael’s Mittagong.

Best wishes,
Mrs Katrina West
Principal